Elizabeth Warren Scolds Chris Matthews for Tough Questions

At Breitbart "'STOP THIS!' ELIZABETH WARREN SCOLDS CHRIS MATTHEWS FOR TOUGH QUESTIONS."

Video is here.

Good on Chris Matthews. Warren's a liar and hypocrite. Blames everything on the Republicans. What a loser.

#ISIS Jihadists Enter Ruthless Alliance with Former Saddam Loyalists in Baath Party of #Iraq

Following up on my previous entry, "#ISIS Advance Through Iraq is 'Basically a Blitzkrieg'."

And now at the New York Times, "Uneasy Alliance Gives Insurgents an Edge in Iraq":

ERBIL, Iraq — Meeting with the American ambassador some years ago in Baghdad, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki detailed what he believed was the latest threat of a coup orchestrated by former officers of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.

“Don’t waste your time on this coup by the Baathists,” the ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, chided him, dismissing his conspiracy theories as fantasy.

Now, though, with Iraq facing its gravest crisis in years, as Sunni insurgents have swept through northern and central Iraq, Mr. Maliki’s claims about Baathist plots have been at least partly vindicated. While fighters for the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, once an offshoot of Al Qaeda, have taken on the most prominent role in the new insurgency, they have done so in alliance with a deeply rooted network of former loyalists to Saddam Hussein.

The involvement of the Baathists helps explain why just a few thousand Islamic State in Iraq and Syria fighters, many of them fresh off the battlefields of Syria, have been able to capture so much territory so quickly. It sheds light on the complexity of the forces aligned against Baghdad in the conflict — not just the foreign-influenced group known as ISIS, but many homegrown groups, too. And with the Baathists’ deep social and cultural ties to many areas now under insurgent control, it stands as a warning of how hard it might be for the government to regain territory and restore order.

Many of the former regime loyalists, including intelligence officers and Republican Guard soldiers — commonly referred to as the “deep state” in the Arab world — belong to a group called the Men of the Army of the Naqshbandia Order, often referred to as J.R.T.N., the initials of its Arabic name. The group announced its establishment in 2007, not long after the execution of Mr. Hussein, and its putative leader, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was one of Mr. Hussein’s most trusted deputies and the highest-ranking figure of the old regime who avoided capture by the Americans.

Referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s fighters, Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has researched the Naqshbandia group, said, “They couldn’t have seized a fraction of what they did without coordinated alliances with other Sunni groups.”

In some areas under militant control, including areas around Mosul, Kirkuk and Tikrit, he said, “there are definitely pockets where the Naqshbandias are wearing the pants.”

Mr. Douri, the king of clubs in decks of cards given to American forces in 2003 to identify the most-wanted regime leaders, is a mysterious figure, so furtive he was even declared dead in 2005. It is believed that he is still alive today — he would be in his early 70s — although even that is uncertain. After the American invasion he was said to have fled to Syria, where he reportedly worked with Syrian intelligence to restore the Baath Party within Iraq and led an insurgency from there that mainly targeted American interests.

“He’s a great totem of the old regime,” Mr. Knights said. “You need that kind of individual to keep the flame going.”

It's said that representatives of Douri's Naqshbandia group have met with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the secretive ISIS leader sometimes considered the next Osama bin Laden.

Notice the irony here: The left claimed there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein maintained ties or support for al-Qaeda before 9/11, and it was claimed no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq in 2003; but in 2014 Saddam's top butchers are now coordinating chemical weapons development with al-Qaeda-in-Iraq's splinter group, all while the Democrat who was once the most antiwar member of the U.S. Senate prepares to launch airstrikes on some of the world's most dangerous elements, who President George W. Bush had placed in the Axis of Evil.

Blow-back is a bitch sometimes, especially for the Democrats.

PREVIOUSLY: "No WMDs? #ISIS Jihadists Seize Saddam's 'Premiere' Chemical Weapons Production Facility."

#ISIS Advance Through Iraq is 'Basically a Blitzkrieg'

An interview with Michael Maloof, at RT.

And he's also at WMD, "ISIS SCORES BIG WITH IRAQI WMDs."



PREVIOUSLY: "No WMDs? #ISIS Jihadists Seize Saddam's 'Premiere' Chemical Weapons Production Facility."

#Iraq Crisis Raises Questions Over Obama's Withdrawal from Afghanistan

At London's Daily Mail, "Iraq crisis raises fresh questions over Obama’s withdrawal from Afghanistan as Taliban strikes Nato post destroying trucks and sparking gun battle."

Obama Suggests 'Targeted and Precise' Airstrikes Against #ISIS Jihadists

No boots on the ground but the U.S. "will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action, if and when we determine that the situation on the ground requires it."

Transcript of the president's press conference at CNN, "Transcript: Obama's remarks on U.S. response to Iraq crisis."

And a report at the Los Angeles Times, "Obama to send up to 300 advisors to 'train, advise and support' Iraq."

Major Garrett, below, reports for CBS Evening News.

And at the Washington Post, "White House beginning to consider conflicts in Syria and Iraq as single challenge":

The Obama administration has begun to consider the conflicts in Syria and Iraq as a single challenge, with an al-Qaeda-inspired insurgency threatening both countries’ governments and the region’s broader stability, according to senior administration officials.

At a National Security Council meeting earlier this week, President Obama and his senior advisers reviewed the consequences of possible airstrikes in Iraq, a bolder push to train Syria’s moderate rebel factions and various political initiatives to break down the sectarian divisions that have stirred Iraq’s Sunni Muslims against the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Senior administration officials familiar with the discussions say what is clear to the president and his advisers is that any long-term plan to slow the progress of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, as the insurgency is known, will have far-reaching consequences on both sides of the increasingly inconsequential desert border that once divided the two countries.

Although spreading faster in Iraq, the advance of ISIS could also force the administration to reconsider its calculations in Syria, where Obama has taken a cautious approach, declining to arm moderate rebel factions or conduct airstrikes on government airstrips, as some advisers have recommended.

“The key to both Syria and Iraq is going to be a combination of what happens inside the country, working with moderate Syrian opposition, working with an Iraqi government that is inclusive, and us laying down a more effective counterterrorism platform that gets all the countries in the region pulling in the same direction,” Obama said at a news conference Thursday. “Rather than try to play whack-a-mole wherever these terrorist organizations may pop up, what we have to do is to be able to build effective partnerships.”

More.

Grim Overcrowding, Filthy Conditions at Illegal Alien Detention Centers in #Arizona and Texas

At the Los Angeles Times, "Overcrowded, unsanitary conditions seen at immigrant detention centers":

Immigrant youths covered the dirty concrete floors of the Border Patrol holding cells here, sprawled shoulder to shoulder and draped in grubby Red Cross blankets, enveloped in a haze of sweat and body odor.

Groups of girls and boys stared out the windows of their cells, some of the girls holding babies of their own, as agents watched from a central monitoring station. A girl could be seen scrubbing her armpits at the back of the cell.

This 4,900-square-foot detention center near the Mexican border in south Texas was built to house 250, but for the last few months it has been holding twice that, thanks to what U.S. officials say is an unprecedented influx of children and families, most from Central America, hoping for refuge in the United States.

More than 800 of the youngsters are being held at a former warehouse in Nogales, Ariz., now also deployed as a detention center for migrant youths.

Facing growing controversy over reports of crowded and unsanitary conditions, Border Patrol officials on Wednesday provided the first limited public access to the two facilities, allowing reporters on brief, controlled tours for glimpses of children and a few mothers detained there at the end of their often long journeys from places as far away as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

In Arizona, most were corralled behind chain-link fences topped with razor wire, huddling for warmth on plastic mats under flimsy metallic Mylar blankets. A television was suspended from the ceiling. Banks of portable toilets served as sanitary facilities. Beside a recreation area, a camouflage tarp had been strung up to shield temporary showers.

In Brownsville, the group included young mothers, many of whom looked exhausted. Some of the children looked dazed or stared blankly from the cells, while others waved and smiled. Many slept.

In Nogales, children clung to the towering chain-link fences around their cells, staring at visitors. Some appeared to have been crying, with swollen and red eyes. Others simply stared.

Immigrant advocates say the latest images of overcrowded cells and dirty floors reinforce their concerns that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is ill-prepared for the influx and is not properly safeguarding immigrants rounded up along the border...

It's a leftist Democrat Party scam to put pressure on Republicans to pass amnesty.

More from Katie Pavlich, at Town Hall, "After Leaked Photos Expose Unaccompanied Child Crisis, Border Patrol Agents Threatened With Firings," and "Texas Allocates $1.3 Million For Law Enforcement Surge on The Border":

As the federal government continues to be overwhelmed by a new surge of illegal immigrants from Central America, states are taking matters into their own hands by allocating more resources for border protection.

Yesterday Texas Governor Rick Perry announced the allocation of $1.3 million for a law enforcement surge at the border with a goal of stemming the ongoing crisis...

More.

'Maybe if al-Qaeda renames itself the #Redskins, then Obama will bomb them...'

Heh.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Obama gets serious about al Qaeda takeover, will send Kerry to general area, go on doing nothing."

The 20 Hottest Conservative Women In the New Media for 2014

From John Hawkins, at Right Wing News.

Katie Pavlich comes in at the No. 2 spot.

VIDEO: #ISIS Executes Two Alawites in Aleppo: Bodies Hung Crucifixion-Style

The Alawites are a mystical splinter sect of Shia Islam. The ISIS terrorists are of course Sunnis, although they'll kill anyone who opposes their jihad for the caliphate.

At Weasel Zippers, "Video: ISIS Publicly Executes Two Alawites In Syria, Crucifies Bodies…"

And at MEMRI, "Viewer Discretion Advised: Footage of Executions and Hanging of Bodies by ISIS near Aleppo, Syria (June 8, 2014)."

Bowe Bergdahl Lodged False War Crimes Allegations Against His Platoon

Boy, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters is going to be pissed!

At the Washington Post, "Soldier: Bowe Bergdahl lodged false war crime allegations against his unit":

An Army veteran who served alongside Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan said Wednesday that the long-captive soldier was deeply frustrated with the mission and had lodged false allegations that their unit had carried out atrocities.

Bergdahl “didn’t understand why we were doing more humanitarian aid drops, setting up clinics, and helping the populous instead of hunting the Taliban,” former Spec. Cody Full told lawmakers during a hearing on the exchange of Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “He wanted to hunt and kill.”...

Full, who was honorably discharged and served with Bergdahl in the same fire team, the military’s smallest type of organized unit, railed against Bergdahl’s attitude during his deployment in 2009 and rejected media reports that he was a sensitive young man trying to define himself during a time of war. His handwritten journal, along with essays, stories and e-mails provided to The Washington Post, painted him as a soldier full of worry about his own mental health and the situation in Afghanistan.

“Bergdahl was complaining to his parents that our platoon was committing atrocities instead of helping the local populous,” Full told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “But he was telling our platoon that we needed to stop trying to win hearts and minds and focus more on killing the Taliban.”

Full also dismissed suggestions that Bergdahl’s platoon had discipline issues.

“It’s a ridiculous charge,” Full said. “Security was always in place. These acts of common sense survival did not jeopardize the security or put anyone in danger.”

Bergdahl, who is not believed to have spoken to his parents since his release, is currently recovering in San Antonio, Tex., after a brief stay at Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. He is set to be released in the coming weeks following the completion of reintegration treatment.

Video: "Bergdahl SPC Cody Full June 18, 2014."

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Bowe Bergdahl's platoon-mate testifies before Congress that he should face EIGHT criminal charges including desertion."

Marine Veteran Kyle Carpenter Receives Medal of Honor

At CNN, "Marine who took grenade blast for comrade receives Medal of Honor."

You gotta watch both of these clips, "Marine Cpl. Carpenter awarded Medal of Honor," and "Cpl. Kyle Carpenter Just Getting Started."

No WMDs? #ISIS Jihadists Seize Saddam's 'Premiere' Chemical Weapons Production Facility

At the Wall Street Journal, "Sunni Extremists in Iraq Occupy Hussein's Chemical Weapons Facility: Officials Don't Believe the Militants Will Be Able to Create a Functional Weapon From the Material."

WSJ's report suggests there's no immediate danger that ISIS could convert old chemical materials into working weapons of mass destruction, but the more interesting thing is that we were told that there were no WMDs Iraq after the 2003 invasion, despite all the evidence to the contrary pre-invasion (evidence that Democrats repeatedly used to make the case for regime change).

From WSJ:

WASHINGTON—Sunni extremists in Iraq have occupied what was once Saddam Hussein's premier chemical-weapons production facility, a complex that still contains a stockpile of old weapons, State Department and other U.S. government officials said.

U.S. officials don't believe the Sunni militants will be able to create a functional chemical weapon from the material. The weapons stockpiled at the Al Muthanna complex are old, contaminated and hard to move, officials said.

Nonetheless, the capture of the chemical-weapon stockpile by the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, known as ISIS or ISIL, the militant group that is seizing territory in the country, has grabbed the attention of the U.S.

"We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by the ISIL," Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a written statement. "We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials."

The takeover underscores the chaos gripping Iraq and the possibility that the growing Sunni rebellion could further destabilize the Middle East. Not lost on U.S. government and military officials is the irony that the latest chapter in a war designed to strip Iraq of chemical weapons could see radical Sunni extremists take control of that same stockpile.

The rise of ISIS has reignited the debate about the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration and the 2011 decision by the Obama administration to withdraw remaining military forces from the country. The takeover of a chemical weapons stockpile—even if the weapons are useless—seems likely to further intensify those debates.

During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, Hussein used the Muthanna complex to make chemical weapons, including sarin, mustard gas, and VX, according the Iraq Study Group, which conducted the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in the aftermath of the war.

The Iraq Study group did find chemical munitions at Muthanna but determined that inspections by United Nations Special Commission, or Unscom, had ensured the facility was dismantled and remaining chemical stocks militarily useless and sealed in bunkers.

"Two wars, sanctions and Unscom oversight reduced Iraqi's premier production facility to a stockpile of old damaged and contaminated chemical munitions (sealed in bunkers), a wasteland full of destroyed chemical munitions, razed structures, and unusable war-ravaged facilities," the Iraq Study Group's 2004 report concluded.

The Muthanna complex is near Lake Tharthar, roughly 45 miles northwest of Baghdad, an area now firmly in control of the Sunni rebels. ISIS has taken control of most of Anbar province as well as Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city.

Military officials said the U.S. was well aware of the Muthanna stockpile and wouldn't have left it there if it posed a military threat. Still, when the U.S. pulled out of Iraq, it didn't anticipate a large swath of the country, including numerous military bases, would be overrun by radical Sunni militants. One defense official said that if the U.S. had known the Iraqi government would lose control so soon, it might not have left the old chemical weapons in place.

So now we can blame the Obama administration for WMDs falling back into the hands of jihadist enemies of the United States.

Norman Podhoretz 'Re-Litigates' the War in #Iraq: President Obama 'Has Opened the Doors of Hell...'

Here's the piece at Commentary, "Iraq: What We Know Now and What We Knew Then" (at Memeorandum).

Podhoretz uses George Will's Monday op-ed at the Washington Post as his foil, and picking it up from there:

“Given the absence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction,” his indictment of Bush begins, but the only “given” in 2003 was the exact opposite. All fifteen agencies involved in gathering intelligence for the United States agreed “with high confidence” that “Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.” So did the intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel, and France.

“Given” also that the Democrats would later accuse Bush of lying about this, here is a (partial) list of Democrats who had previously joined in the consensus: Bill Clinton; his Vice President Al Gore; his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; his Secretary of Defense William Cohen; and his National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. In the Senate, there were Teddy Kennedy, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Edwards, Jay Rockefeller, Robert Byrd, and Bob Graham–not to mention Nancy Pelosi, among scores of others, in the House, as well as liberal papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post. Each and every one of them saw Saddam Hussein as a threat, and they all advocated taking action against him.

“Given” all this, I would go so far as to say that not only was George W. Bush justified in ordering the invasion, but that if he had failed to do so, he would have deserved to be impeached for violating his oath to “preserve, protect, and defend” this country against any and all foreign enemies.    

As to the other items in George Will’s parade of horribles, they all belong to the period that followed the successful military phase of the invasion itself. I am willing to stipulate that many mistakes were made in the three years that followed, and that the entire operation would very likely have ended in defeat if Bush had not finally found in David Petraeus a general who wanted to win and knew how to do it. The upshot was that by the time Barack Obama took office, American casualties were all the way down, and that the Iraq turned over to him was a country largely at peace and living under a nascent democratic regime. So much for the case for blaming Bush.

Turning now to the case for blaming Obama, a commensurately eloquent one has been made by another old friend of mine, David Pryce Jones, the eminent British authority on the Arab world. After explaining why and how the al-Qaeda affiliate ISIS has been able to capture city after city in Iraq and is now only about fifty miles from Baghdad, David flatly declares that “President George W. Bush is vindicated. The sole way Iraq could have continued was under a permanent American presence that gave and guaranteed state functions. President Obama’s withdrawal of American forces is already a historic error. They alone could have kept the peace. Arabs have a phrase to the effect that some mistake has opened the doors of Hell. President Obama has opened those doors.”

Obama evidently now thinks that a de facto alliance with Iran—Iran!—is the way to close those doors, but such an alliance would only guarantee that they would open even wider than they are now. It would also solidify Iran’s influence over Iraq while giving a green light to an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Alas, none of the other proposals for getting us out of this fix seems fully persuasive. Which means that it may be too late to prevent Iraq from joining Syria as part of a new Iranian empire. It is not too late, however, to keep that empire from building a nuclear arsenal, and neither is it too late to keep Afghanistan from reverting to the al-Qaeda haven it was before 9/11. The problem is that doing those things would require Barack Obama to acknowledge that his policies are exposing us to an infinitely greater danger than we were in before 9/11. In my opinion–and I express it with fear and trembling–it would take something close to a miracle for him to undergo so radical a change of heart and mind. God help us then.

Read it all at the link.

Terror's New Headquarters

At the Economist, "The Capture of Mosul: Terror's New Headquarters":

In coming weeks the jihadists may fall prey to overstretch (see article). Perhaps Iraq’s humiliated army will muster the resolve to make a stand, or even retake Mosul. But, with its symbolic victories and an endless supply of young men, that will be of little comfort. ISIS aims to redraw the map of the Middle East by creating a Sunni state, starting with eastern Syria and the heart of Iraq. Its brand of militancy is spreading poison and terror across the Arab world. One day, if they have their way, ISIS’s suicide-bombers will also target Europe and America. Without a change of heart in Baghdad and Washington, ISIS and groups like it will continue to cause mayhem. Even with a new approach, it will be hard to stop the jihad.

Keep reading.

Amazon's Smartphone Release

Amazon's turning into the next tech juggernaut, and not so much in a good way.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Amazon unveils Fire smartphone."

And at Techmeme, "Introducing Fire, the First Smartphone Designed by Amazon."

'Morning Joe' Panel Mocks IRS for Lost Lois Lerner Emails

They're cracking up, "MSNBC Panel Mocks and Ridicules IRS for Losing Lois Lerner Emails."

Will Iraq or Syria Survive? U.N. Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Middle East Crisis

An interview at the hard-left Democracy Now!

Brahimi takes the standard leftist line that the current crisis is all the Bush administration's fault. Doh!



And FWIW, at attack on Brahimi from 9/11 truther Thierry Meyssan, "Taking stock of Lakhdar Brahimi."

Iraqi Government Denies Loss of Baiji Refinery to #ISIS Jihadists

Well, if that ISIS video from last night is authentic, it doesn't much look like Iraq forces control much around that refinery.

But here's this from Holly Williams for CBS News "This Morning":

South Carolina DMV Makes Transgender Teen Remove Makeup Before Taking Driver's License Photo

Here we go, at the "tipping point" of the civil rights agenda.

At the New York Daily News, "DMV forces gender non-conforming South Carolina teen to remove makeup for license photo: activists."

Click through at NYDN for the selfie Culpepper took right before removing his makeup.



Also at the Los Angeles Times, "Gender group asks South Carolina to let teen wear makeup for DMV photo."

The Assassination of Nouri al-Maliki? U.S. Looks to Oust Iraqi Prime Minister

I suggested on Twitter a couple of days ago that the administration should go the Ngo Dinh Diem route. Nouri al-Maliki's been tightening his grip in defiance of Washington. But his time is up and it's not like there's no precedent for decisive action.

At the Wall Street Journal, "U.S. Signals Iraq's Maliki Should Go: The White House Is Convinced the Shiite Leader Is Unable to Reconcile With the Nation's Sunni Minority and Stabilize a Volatile Political Landscape":

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is signaling that it wants a new government in Iraq without Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, convinced the Shiite leader is unable to reconcile with the nation's Sunni minority and stabilize a volatile political landscape.

The U.S. administration is indicating it wants Iraq's political parties to form a new government without Mr. Maliki as he tries to assemble a ruling coalition following elections this past April, U.S. officials say.

Such a new government, U.S., officials say, would include the country's Sunni and Kurdish communities and could help to stem Sunni support for the al Qaeda offshoot, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, that has seized control of Iraqi cities over the past two weeks. That, the officials argue, would help to unify the country and reverse its slide into sectarian division.

No worries, of course.

The U.S. wants nothing to do with a coup against Maliki, because in reality the White House is just washing its hand of the whole affair. A violent overthrow of Maliki's regime would signal a return to America's viceroy role in Iraq. And that ain't happening. Shoot, as it is Obama's backing away from airstrikes against the insurgents. Basically, we're stuck with hashtags from here on out.

More at WSJ.

PHOTO: The body of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem (via Wikimedia Commons).